University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Professional and Organizational Development To Improve the Academy Network in Higher Education 1995 A Quantum Leap in Faculty Development: Beyond Reflective Practice Donna Qualters Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/podimproveacad Part of the Higher Education Administration Commons Qualters, Donna, "A Quantum Leap in Faculty Development: Beyond Reflective Practice" (1995). To Improve the Academy. 341. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/podimproveacad/341 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in To Improve the Academy by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. A Quantum Leap in Faculty Development: Beyond Reflective Practice Donna Qualters University of Massachusetts Medical Center Quantum theory has introduced a new perspective of looking at reality. This article reviews current theories of reflective practice, discussion, and transformative learning as they apply to faculty de­ velopment and explores dialogue and quantum theory as the next step in faculty transformation. Loneliness invaded not only our. science, but whole cultures. In America, we raised individualism to its highest expression, each of us protecting our boundaries, asserting our rights, creating a culture that Bellah et al. writes leaves the individual suspended in glorious, but terrifying, isolation. These words by Margaret Wheatley preface her book on leader­ ship and quantum theory (1993, p. 30). They refer to a culture that is strongly exemplified by the teaching world of academia. As faculty members, we protect our boundaries (the classroom), assert our rights (to conduct teaching in private), and leave ourselves in terrifying isolation. Lee Shulman addressed this same issue when he discussed the isolation faculty experience in the classroom (Shulman, 1993). Both authors address an issue at the very heart of faculty development. How can we develop as teachers if we remain in isolation? If teaching is done behind closed doors, how can faculty enrich their teaching and their academic experience? Both Wheatley and Shulman would say To Improve the Academy, Vol. 14, 1995 43 To Improve the Academy they can't. If we accept Wheatley's premise that we live in a quantwn world, if "things" have disappeared, if ..in a quantwn world, relation­ ships are not just interesting ... they are all there is to reality" (1993, pg. 32), then faculty development must move beyond its traditional, linear approach. In the words of Karl Weick ..we must stop arguing about truth and get on with figuring what works best" (Weick cited in Wheatley, 1993, pg. 37). Leaders in a quantwn world also have a different role. Using a jazz metaphor, Wheatly suggests that the traditional functions of making decisions and setting examples must be replaced. As leaders we play a crucial role in selecting melody, setting the tempo, establishing the key, and inviting the players. But that is all we do. The music comes from something we cannot direct, from a unified whole created among the players... in the end, then it works, we sit back, amazed and grateful (Wheatley, 1993, p. 44) In a more direct connection to academic teaching, Parker Palmer echoes Wheatly 's conceptual framework and suggests the creation of a community of discourse about teaching and learning (Palmer, 1993). He asks us to get over our habit of reducing teaching to ..how to do it" questions, much as Wheatley asks us to get over our Newtonian quest for predictability, to stop analyzing the parts to arrive at the whole. Instead we need to look at ''the challenge of ideas, the exploration of shared practice, the uniqueness of each teacher's genius, the mystery at the heart of the educational exchange" (Palmer, 1993, p. 10). Wheatley poses her challenge a little differently, but still advocates the same concept. 'We need to see beyond the many fragments to the whole, we need to step back far enough to appreciate how things move and change as a coherent whole" (Wheatley, 1993). Palmer, like Wheatley, also envisions leadership in a new way. Leaders need to invite conversations to create the learning community. The most powerful leadership is the type that provides the ways and means to do things people want to do but feel unable to do for themselves. This type of leadership will tap energies much more effectively than the exercise of power or coercion (Palmer, 1993). The role of the leader is to bring the people together and then watch and see what their energy creates. 44 A Quantum Leap in Faculty Development If we accept this principle as a new paradigm, what does it mean for faculty development? New ideas are being tried and tested, some as deceptively simple as "personalization" (Katz & Henry, 1988) others conceptually more complicated, such as "reflective practice" (Schon, 1983). Faculty development, as traditionally conceived, is relatively narrow, and this new view certainly implies a movement beyond the traditional workshops, individual consultations, teaching tips, and the like. But what will replace the old paradigm? I suggest that we should explore the use of reflective practice, critical thinking, discussion, transformative learning, and dialogue as a basis for design­ ing a new approach to faculty development. Reflective Practice Schon coined the term "knowing-in-action" to describe the way skillful practitioners often possess knowledge that they cannot name or identify (Schon, 1983, pg. 50). "Knowing in action" is defined by three salient characteristics (Schon, 1983, p. 54): 1. Actions, recognitions, and judgments that we do not think about but carry on in a spontaneous manner. 2. An unawareness of having learned these things, we just do them. 3. In some cases, awareness of the internalized understanding; in other cases unaware, yet in both cases an inability to describe the knowing. In essence, "skillful action often reveals a knowing more than we can say" (p. 51). Shulman uses this concept again when referring to teachers as practitioners who know more than they ever try to articu­ late (Shulman, 1987). I found this to be true when working with faculty members who were trained in health professions. As we worked together to help them transfer their skills into a classroom setting, they were struck over and over by the fact that they "knew" a great deal of educational theory, they just never identified it as such. For example, in a session on Classroom Assessment based on the work of Angelo and Cross, they discovered that the idea was very similar to clinical assessment of patients they had practiced for years. (Qualters, 1995) 45 To Improve the Academy The principles and practices were very similar: fmd out what is wrong with the patient/student; prescribe a course of action; assess to see if the patient is healing or the student is learning; adjust the course of action based on assessment. By reflecting on their practice they were able to transfer this skill to the classroom. These techniques simply needed to be ''named" for them. They certainly knew more than they could say. Schon identified this transformation as a shift from know­ ing-in-action to knowledge-in-action, an awareness that one possesses knowledge that is rigorous and relevant (1983, p. 59). But knowledge-in-action is not enough. Practitioners need to have a mechanism to identify, evaluate, adjust and apply this knowledge to make it useful. Schon calls this concept "reflective practice". Schon feels that through reflection, practitioners can bring to awareness and evaluate the tacit understanding that is part of their experience in their specialized practice. As a result, they will be able to make sense of new and unique situations when they arise (Schon, 1983). Of course, many of us do reflect on practice. Teachers often leave class wondering what went wrong, or why a certain situation occurred, and what can they do to change it. But this kind of instantaneous, on-the-spot reflection is less intensive than that which Schon believes is necessary when he suggests "reflection-in-action." "Reflection-in­ action" is not time-constrained; it can be instantaneous or it can last over a period of months. It can be a reflection on the immediate event or a reflection on the tacit norms and assumptions that underlie our actions (Schon, 1983). This kind of "double loop learning" focuses on understanding not only what we do but why we do it (Argyris & Schon cited in lssacs, 1993). The Allied Health faculty members I worked with provide a good example of "double loop learning" in conjunction with reflective practice. In a discussion on how to handle difficult students in class, we talked not only about how they handled difficult patients in the clinic but why they dealt with them in a specific way. We explored the "theory" behind their behavior. We then discussed whether this was appropriate for the classroom (it was), and why it would be a good strategy for dealing with difficult students. This idea is also in concert with quantum theory principles: Wheatley asserts that the environment remains uncreated until we 46 A Quantum Leap in Faculty Development interact with it and that there is no describing it until we engage it (Wheatley, 1993). So when we take knowledge and transfer it to a new situation, its efficacy can only be detennined in action. This principle, reflective practice followed by action, holds a promise for for chang­ ing the field of faculty development. The American Association of Higher Education devoted an entire conference to this topic in the summer of 1995, and the conference itself may be a means for "improving teaching through conversation and community" (Palmer, 1993, pg.